The moment that changed my novel - Don't be afraid to change course

Don't be afraid to change course with your novel 

It's always good to hear that people have finally got down to writing that novel that they've had held deep inside of them for years spurred on by the pandemic. Or to read about those writers who have never gotten so much writing done.

If you're like me and find yourself in the I'm struggling to write anything camp, you might feel discouraged.

Struggling to write? 

At several points over the last year, I have seriously thought about giving up writing anything at all. Because of money pressures, I have found myself working longer hours to earn money from ways other than my writing. Unless you are one of the 1% of writers who makes a very good living, writing fiction is a very badly paying trade.

It's only just recently that I have re-focused back on my work in progress, a psychological crime thriller. The reason - I've realised I need a different approach. 

Time for a new beginning

The beginning of the book has to be rewritten and rejigged to make it the compelling read I want it to be. The type of book I love to read which I hope to write.

The moment of realisation came for me when I witnessed a distressing scene where a woman was staring at a couple's daughter who looked about 9 years old. This was in a supermarket and the woman's staring was such that the mother noticed it and pointed it out to her husband who angrily spoke to her. 'What are you looking at? Stop staring at my daughter like that.'

In usual circumstances, if someone spoke to you like that and everybody turned round to stare, you would be mortified and shuffle off away from public scrutiny. But this woman kept staring. It was as if she was transfixed and I could see the man getting angrier and advancing towards her.

Thankfully at this stage another lady who appeared to know the woman ran up to her put her arm around her and led her off.

I later found out from someone who worked in the supermarket tills that she knew the woman who had been staring and her daughter had been abducted by her husband 2-years ago and taken abroad. Apparently, she still kept seeing her child everywhere.

'I think she thought that little girl was her daughter,' the check-out assistant told me. 'She's mistaken other children for hers too before.'

Good fiction comes from truth

As well as feeling heartsick for that poor woman, the whole thing made me think that the novel I was writing that had a similar theme of a missing child, needed to be changed.

What if after witnessing such a scene and finding out the reason behind it, someone offered to help her find her child? And so I decided to totally restructure the start of my novel.

Will it work and make it the gripping read I want it to be? I hope so. It's in witnessing human moments like hers that you realise reality is often stranger than fiction.

I also hope, that one day very soon, that poor woman is reunited with her child.

Increasing the word count of your novel

I’m currently scribbling away trying to bring the word count of my novella How Kirsty Gets Her Kicks up by about 17,000 words. At first it seemed like an arduous task.

How do you expand on a high octane thriller, without dragging the pace down to snail level? 

Then I had a few Eureka moments. Hopefully they may be of some help to you if you find your word count is too short -

1-Think what could I have done differently in that scene to add an extra twist?  For instance, what if instead of escaping she’d fallen at the last moment? What if she saw someone or something she shouldn’t have?  Trip your character up and let them find a way out. 

2-Use Stephen King’s advice and think ‘what should happen next’ and do the opposite of what you’ve done. This may take you down a whole new story arc. 

3-Could you introduce a new character? Someone who could shake things up a bit? I did just that and it took my book down a different road.

4-Have a blast from the past. Does someone, or something come back to haunt your character? A previous crime or misdeed, an abusive parent or partner, someone who should be dead (possibly because your character killed them)? Be as creative as possible without making completely unrealistic.

5- Expand on a subplot. Have you really gone as far as you could with that plot, or did you abandon it too soon in favour of your main one? 

Things not to do –

1-Change abbreviations like he’s and she’d to he is and she had. This sounds clumsy, not to mention too wordy. 

2-Pad out with tonnes of description. There’s nothing more liable to put readers off than two pages describing one tree. What makes you skip a page will make you reader skip too. Every word needs to earn its place. 

3-Come up with something that simply doesn’t fit just for the sake of it. This could be a character who died coming back to life or acting completely out of character. Anything you write has to be realistic and not pie in the sky or too contrived.

The nightmare of submitting to agents

I sent the first two submissions off to agents today and now the long wait begins. I know people say that getting an agent is more difficult than getting a publisher. I know it's like being a needle in a haystack. 

But, your work is doing nothing lying on that desk or filed away on your computer.  There comes a time when you have to let your baby go.

I've started biting my nails and eating lots of chocolate (hey, it should be available on the NHS). The terror of the 'send' button is with me every step of the way. But, we authors must be brave as our manuscript takes its tentative steps towards publication.

P.S. While I was searching for agents, one of the sites kindly put up a sample agency contract. It's here if you want a peek.

Dealing with backstory

It can be so easy to fall into the trap of writing too much backstory. Aren't we all a product of what has gone on before in our lives? Therefore, it would follow that our characters are the same.

Liz Roberts who whittled down the Debut Dagger entries – ‘Many entries started off very well – and then ran the reader into the literary equivalent of a brick wall around page 3 or 4, because they couldn’t resist putting in a lot of backstory.’

The best piece of advice I have read came from literary agent Carole Blake in From pitch to publication -
'In order to illustrate a character trait, or a backstory element, demonstrate it with a scene, a snippet of dialogue, but don’t have the narrative address the reader like a newsreader reading facts.'

Editing that novel

I’m now at that scary stage of writing where the story is all done and the plots have come to a conclusion. Now it’s for the scary part – the final edit. 

I say scary because after this it will be time to actually submit the thing. That means contacting agents and publishers.

Here are some of the things I have learnt about editing –

• DON’T over edit. It can be easy to fall into that trap and lose the power of what you have written.
• ALWAYS keep your work before the edit. That way if you want to change it back to how it was, you have your original and don’t end up having to resurrect it from memory.
• LIMIT the use of words like well like, only, just, had, seem, seemed, seems (better to say something is) and adjectives with ly at the end (trust me, they get monotonous).
• If you keep on having to say who is speaking when it’s a regular character, then you need to work on your characterisation. People should know who is speaking by how they say what they say.
• Take time out from editing to read. Good writers need to read.
• ALWAYS print out for the final edit and edit by hand the old fashioned way, with a pan. You will be amazed at what you miss when you do it on a computer screen. Very amazed.
• READ OUT what you have written to yourself to make sure it reads right. You can spot things that way. I try a bit of method acting as well reading it as though as though I am that character and try and act as they do (in my head). Weird and I may be nuts, but it works for me.

Working on the dreaded synopsis...

and I am slowly going insane. I would rather walk over broken glass than write a synopsis. But they are essential to sell a book to a publisher or agent. They tell them what the book is about and let them know what to expect. 

I posted on the Writers' News Talkback site and other writers have been very helpful with their advice.

Maybe I will master the nightmare that is the synopsis before I tear my hair out.

In the meatime, I have found author Lisa Gardiner's site to be a great help. Visit her Conquering the Dreaded Synopsis series of articles here - http://lisagardner.com/writers-toolbox.

Crime Scenes

It's important to get things right when you're writing a novel. That's why crime scene pics can be a good idea.

As Vile City opens, Shelley Craig has just got off the bus with her boyfriend Stuart. He goes down an alleyway to relieve himself and when he hasn't returned minutes later she goes looking for him. That's when she is abducted.

Thanks go to my crime scene snapper.

Here's the video.

Do you use certain words too much?

I read about author Jane Lovering putting her writing through the wordle.net site in this month’s Writing Magazine. 

Wordle creates a word cloud of your writing with the words you use the most highlighted and is a brilliant site. 

When I used it, the words it highlighted were – like, one, even, know, feel, away and smile.  Guess it’s time to comb that manuscript. 

Editing needs to be done on paper

This past few days I have been editing a novel I've been working on.  I thought writing on a computer screen and using a spell and grammar check, that my work would be error free.  Then I decided to take the advice of others writers more successful than me and print it out and edit it with a red pen.

My, that red pen has been busy.  And you know what, as well as getting rid of all the mistakes I have made, I have improved the manuscript and re-written parts of it.

Editing on paper may seem laborious and old fashioned, but boy is it needed.  As writers we are so close to our work, we don't always see the mistakes.

Editing woes

Is a word that strikes fear into the hearts of writers everywhere and quite often despondancy.  These days we writers need to get our manuscripts as polished as we can before it goes in front of an agent or publisher, because if we don't we'll get that dreaded 'no' email or even worse, our hard work stuffed in an envelope and pushed through our letterbox.

I am currently at the editing process with Vile City.  It's a long process, but I know its one I have to go through if I want to stand a chance of getting it published.  In these days where everything is done on computer I have discovered one thing - if I want to get my novel to the best it can be its time to edit the old fashioned way - with a pen and paper.  It's far too easy to miss mistakes when you write and edit on the your PC or laptop.

Here are some others things I have learnt -

1- Sometimes it's better to give your writing to someone neutral to read.  I had two fantastic reviews on You Write On that highlighted typos I had made.

2- Don't keep using  'seem' and 'seemed'.  Be more specific.

3- Cut down on the use of 'only' and 'just.'  These are words you can do without.

4- Have a timeline for your book.  This will prevent main character A meeting character B when they were both somewhere different entirely.

5- If you write a piece in your novel that you love, but it doesn't fit in, then DITCH IT.  Don't get all precious or uppity.

6- If your novel takes a wrong turning, retrace your steps.  Where did it all go wrong/bad?  Fix it.  Don't sob as you delete all your lovely words. 

7- Have a document where you keep chunks of text that you have taken from your novel in case you realise you've made a mistake and need to put them back. 

Why Vile City?

My novel is set in Glasgow and begins with a young woman getting off a bus with her boyfriend. They take a short cut down an alley (not a wise thing to do anywhere) and are attacked by an assailant unknown. The boyfriend thinks he's been stabbed, but he's been knocked out cold by a sedative and his girlfriend is abducted. Vile City follows DI Duncan Waddell, who wishes he'd become a history teacher, as he tries to track down three women who have been taken by the beast the press have dubbed 'The Glasgow Grabber.'

The title comes from the fact that DI Waddell is becoming disillusioned by the fair city he once loved thanks to the nasty underbelly he uncovers in the course of his work.

As well as this novel, I am also working on a book of 23,000 words aimed at one imprint in particular, about Kirsty, a one legged barmaid who goes on the run after killing a gangster's goon who got a bit too touchy feely by putting her stiletto through his pug ugly head. You had to have been there to know her violence was justified.